Hero died saving her grandson
HALF THEIR congregation is dead, and their house of worship is riddled with bullets, but members of a Texas church targeted in a merciless mass shooting will be praying this Sunday.
Parishioners at Sutherland Springs’ First Baptist Church will sing songs, lift prayers and share testimony at a community center next door to the tiny white church where 26 people were killed and 20 more wounded in a Sunday morning massacre.
“Standing in this place is very humbling,” said Vice President Pence, who visited the church site Wednesday.
“Every American is inspired by the heroes of Sutherland Springs, first responders and medical professionals.”
Earlier, Pence met with shooting victims at Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio, including Zachary Poston, 18, who was shot six times while protecting a little girl.
“We were deeply moved by their faith,” Pence said. “We put our arms around them and reassured them that every American has them under prayers.”
Poston survived because his grandmother, Peggy Warden, 59, threw her arms around him and shielded him with her body. She was killed. “He turned to ask her if she was OK and he said she was already gone and slumped over,” said Jimmy Stevens, 58, Warden’s brother. “That’s what saved his life. Because none of the shells hit his vital organs. He got one through the side.”
The service planned for Sunday will be held with help from pastors of nearby churches, a payback of sorts for First Baptist’s history of charitable community service — including cleaning up neighbors’ properties after devastating storms.
“They don’t have a lot of money,” Mike Clements, a pastor at a nearby church, told CNN. “But they are always willing to give.”
Frank Pomeroy, First Baptist’s pastor, is scheduled to speak. ZACHARY POSTON stood in the lethal line of fire as bullets tore through the First Baptist Church — until the teen’s gutsy grandmother surrendered her life to save his.
Peggy Lynn Warden acted as a human shield during the carnage inside the Sutherland Springs house of worship, protecting the 18-year-old high school senior from certain death.
The 56-year-old volunteer Sunday school teacher “is our hero,” wrote Korri Stevens, the great aunt of the fortunate Poston. “She saved Zachary’s life.”
The high school senior incredibly returned the life-giving favor almost immediately, pushing a small girl to safety beneath a pew despite a leg shattered by one of the mass killer’s bullets.
Poston, who was shot a halfdozen times, then saved himself by playing dead as the killer continued spraying the church with rounds.
Warden was among the 26 congregants murdered last Sunday when the lone gunman blasted 450 bullets around the church in a small Texas town. Her last act was to take one of those bullets to spare Zachary.
The young man had another angel in Julie Workman, a nurse inside the church.
Workman suffered a graze wound and a cut to her leg — but applied tourniquets to at least six victims, including Zachary, someone she’d known for years.
“People were either slumped over in their pews or laying out in the floor. It was a battlefield,” Workman said.
Her 34-year-old son was shot in the back and is in critical condition.
Yellow crime scene tape kept mourners at bay for three days after the nation’s latest mass shooting. A makeshift memorial of teddy bears and flowers rested nearby.
A sobbing Alison Gould, 17, said she needed to make the pilgrimage to the spot where her best friend Hayley Kreuger died.
“It’s hard to be here, to know that my best friend was laying there because of an idiot that did this,” said Gould. “I don’t have a best friend anymore.”